Easter Weekend

Way back last August, my dad turned 70 years old. We had planned to celebrate it then, but with 4 adult daughters, all married and 7 grandkids, scheduling a time for all of us to get together gets a little hairy. Time passed and various parts of the family were busy, so finally in January, we tried again to schedule a time to get together. We determined that Easter weekend was the next time we could all get together.

Saturday morning we gathered at my sister's house in Yankton and her friend who lives nearby took family pictures. I can't wait to see them! She did the whole group, the grankids, the daughters, my parents, the couples, etc. She was done in 45 minutes! She is amazing!! Looking forward to seeing those as soon as possible.

We grabbed a bite to eat back at my sister's house. Another sister loves making and decorating cakes and really outdid herself.

It is a white chocolate cake, that she made into a torte with strawberry jam. Since we celebrated the birthday so late, so made a slight adjustment to the number on top. That is 70.5 if you can't make it out.

Then we loaded into vehicles with walkie talkies and drove to see where my dad and my grandparents lived growing up. We saw the country school my dad attending in the late 1940s and the house that my grandma grew up in. Amazingly, the house is still standing remarkably straight and incredibly intact for being at least 90 years old and probably older. My grandmother was born in 1919 and she is the third of four kids. The oldest would have been something like 97 years old this year if she were still living. The only remaining sibling turns 93 this summer.

When we were finished, we stopped at my folks for a quick snack and roadtripped to Red Lobster. This is where my dad wanted to go, so all 17 of us went and stuffed ourselves.

We went back to my folks and sisters' place to sleep and then attended church services and then dinner at my folks that afternoon. Unfortunately, my camera died and I didn't get any pictures of the rest of the day.

Photos from my Sisters Wedding

While my sister's wedding was last fall, I wanted to post a few photos that she sent me. If you've ever met me in person, you probably don't recognize me all dressed up with my hair done. That is my beloved husband next to me, with our 3 kids in front of us. The twins are on the outside and the youngest is in the middle.








My mom, sisters and I made all the floral arrangements and bouquets. My sister got 400 roses in various colors plus greenery from Sam's Club a couple of days before the wedding and the day before we spent about 6 hours putting the arrangements and bouquets together. They turned out beautiful. Someone commented that the large urn arrangements would retail for about $500-$600 had we purchased them. I dried my bouquet and am enjoying it at home now.





This is the entire family. Everyone is posed with their family. I am the oldest, the sister on the far right is next in age, then the bride, and my youngest sister is on the right between my mom and the sister closest in age. We are getting to be a quite a large group. In fact, there is another baby on the way as we speak (my sister).

I'm Jumping In Too!

I've been blogging for a little while now, but haven't been very consistent at it. Part of the reason, is that I didn't think it was very easy to do much, but add text to my blog. I could never seem to make it look like I wanted. After reading many friends blogs here and hearing that it was relatively easy, I decided to change over. I will probably bring those posts over at some time.

My other blog was primarily about homeschooling, but included my interests of scrapbooking as well. I hope to blog about a larger variety of topics. In case you can't tell from the title of my blog, I LOVE CHOCOLATE!!!! Pretty much any shape or form! I am an avowed coffee-hater, but my friends even convinced me to try a chocolate covered coffee bean this morning and it wasn't bad at all! So you will see posts on a number of topics here: scrapbooking, chocolate, homeschooling, an organic lifestyle, running your own business, family, pets, books I've read, living in the country, things I believe in, decorating, organization, cute kids and the things they say, my pet peeves and A Day in the Life......

How's that for a bit of everything? Please come back often and if I am not posting, don't hesitate to remind me, it's time to post something new!